I was wondering when this would happen

Matt "More Cowbell" Colver has asked that he be played by Christopher Walken

another actor to play Graser?

William H. Macy had been suggested as someone who could play me in the movie of my life.

I think he is up to it.
He may have to put on a few pounds for the later scenes....

Hello from Lucy

time lapse - Ya gotta click on the pix to get it all

We all remember running through the sprinkler. I got lucky with these shots. they are not an actual time-lapse. I shot this with a disposable camera and they are of four seperate trips through the sprinkler. It came out pretty good.

click on the pix

You have to click on the picture below to see how hot it is.
I used up all my free Flikr bandwidth, so I am using the new Blogger photo upload.. a few limitations but I like it.

HOT!!

I don't remember it being this hot in North Carolina. WTF? this Ohio gosh darnit!

Actor - not rugby player

Sandy wall says he wants to be played by the actor Kevin James - not the New Zealand All-Blacks star Kevin James.

Oh well.

The mud garden

Lucy is out of town and that gives me an excellent opportunity to work in the garden.
Not that she isn't keen on helping out in our little vegetable patch.
Here she is doing some watering with the neighbors' little girl.

Train and boat

Lucy and Mary are spending about 12 hours in the car today, so I thought I would post some photos of Lucy in some other transportation.

She was the train's only passenger - it was powered by a lawn tractor. I think the cotton candy looks like a puffy little cloud, but that just might be the A.A. Milne in me.

Not sure why she chose the back of the boat where there were no steering wheels. But she seemed to enjoy herself.

The Scrambler

Lucy and Mary left town today to spend about three weeks enjoying Chateaugay Lake. I am planning on having a blast working.

This is Lucy on the Scrambler. It was the only ride that I rode with her, which is a big breakthrough.

White space solved, template changed

I changed my template in order to solve the mystery of the giant white space at the top of my posts.
I had to give up a few things in my index column but I will work on changing that as time goes by.

not sure what's up with the white space

???

But is it art?

I make an occasional stab at art. You might have seen my baseball fence. Not great, but a stab.
Lucy doesn't attempt art - she just does it.

The best part of this one is that she stopped. Most of the time when she starts adding color to a page she keeps going until she saturates the sheet with a muddy mess. This time she decided she was done. Nice.


Here is a photograph Lucy took of our back-door-yard neighbor:

I took a similar photo but I did it over the top of the fence. Lucy just shot it the way she sees it. Of course she didn't have many options - she is still short.


Finally here is a shot of Lucy wondering what everybody thinks the big deal is about a little mud.

It's just mud - she's just playing - it's just art - yeesh!

Country Music

To me, it's not a proper country song unless at some point the lead singer turns to the lead guitar or pedal steel guitar player and says, "come on in here."

This kid knows how to enjoy herself

HAPPY FATHERS DAY!

More actors for my movie

For some reason, people are clammering to be in the movie of my live.
Sandy Wall has written in to say that he should be portrayed by Kevin James.
I was not sure if he meant Kevin James the Hollywood Actor

Or Kevin James the rugby player from New Zealand

He will have to clarify.
Of course his lovely wife will be played by Reese Witherspoon

Tonya Maxwell has asked that Lucy Liu play her.

Any other requests?

More Photos (click for enlargingness)

Grandma and Grandpa Graser are still in town. They will be heading back to Plattsburgh tomorrow.
Grandma has been entertaining Lucy to an heroic degree

And taking care of the details -- like bathtime
Dad seems to be having a good time. Although I am sure he was disappointed that we didn't wait out the crowd at the G&R in Waldo for a bologna sandwich yesterday.


We have been pretty much living outdoors.
The garden, which I weeded after this picture was taken, is looking good.

On the other side of he deck is a walkway that Mary put together. It is still a work in progress.

And we still haven't figured out what to do with the butterfly house. It lives in the basement with nothing but a Genny Cream Ale can for company.

Photos from the match

As noted in the previous post, we had tons of fun at the Columbus Crew soccer match.
Here are some photos to prove it. (you can click on these pix for enlarging goodness)
Lucy took this shot of me in front of a giant, inflatable beer bottle. We had just arrived at the stadium and I thought it was good sign that we would have a good time.
Lucy was a little in awe of the surroundings.
But she got used to them quickly
Even dad started to enjoy himself.
All-in-all, it was a great father-daughter outing.


And yes they did play a soccer game while we were there.

How tough is my Kid?

I took Lucy to her first professional soccer match yesterday (mine too).
We watched the Columbus Crew beat the Colorado Rapids 1-0.
Go Crew!
On one of the last plays of the first half the ball went off the field and into the stands right at us.
I leaned in front of Lucy to shield her and reached out with one arm to corral the ball. The other arm was around Lucy.
The ball slammed into my arm (it kind of hurt) and bounced right into Lucy's face.
I leaned in front of her - expecting to see a bloody nose or worse. I saw a big grin.
"It hit me in the face!" she crowed and then began talking to all the people in our section that were looking at her with great concern.
"Only that ball just hit me in the face." she explained and then started laughing.
The half ended and we left the our seats in search of cotton candy. Two people shook her hand.
I stopped walking by a bathroom to ask if she had to go and then asked.
"Did it hurt?"
"Oh yes," she said and then asked for the 500th time for some cotton candy.
Lucy won a teddy bear and a Strawberry Shortcake sport ball. She ate popcorn, Dippin' Dots ice cream, pepperoni pizza, cotton candy and drank a Pepsi Cola. I had a hot dog some of Lucy's popcorn and a beer. Lucy also bought a yellow horn that has been hidden.

It was a great time in a beautiful stadium.
We took a bunch of pictures with a disposable that I will post later this week.
Grandma and Grandpa Graser come to town today.

Video created

Cheapest possible equipment, least amount of training and very little time. But, I have crossed the threshold, broken the ice and set a standard. Now others must improve on what I have started.
I hope.
check them out at Marion Star.com

Coming along in audio

About six weeks ago, the idea of putting audio files on the newspaper's Web site was fantasy.
Finally, I want to Radio Shack (of all places), bought a digital voice recorder and we were off and running.
For the first six weeks it was all me. But this weekend I finally got a reporter to collect some wave files. I still do all the editing but we are off and running.
Check them out on the Marion Star Web page

Have you been to Nepal? Well, when you go ...

This is a real conversation I had with someone yesterday.
"So we were flying across the Pacific, in business class," he said and then glanced over at me and made eye contact, "you know what that's like."
Yup, I certainly do.